ANC Officials and Members of the National Executive Committee, Our Alliance partners and other representatives of the mass democratic movement, Representatives of fraternal parties in Africa and the world,

Members of the diplomatic corps and other observers;

Traditional leaders and religious leaders,

Delegates,

Comrades and friends,

Comrade Chairperson,

It is a great pleasure to welcome all delegates to this 53rd National Conference of the African National Congress, taking place at the birthplace of the ANC, Mangaung.

Present here are 4,500 delegates representing thousands of branches, located across the length and breadth of our country.

The ANC has grown phenomenally since the last three conferences.

In 2002 at the Stellenbosch conference membership stood at 416 846. In 2007 at the 52nd National Conference in Polokwane, the total membership was 621 237 members.

It has now grown to 1 220 057 audited members in good standing, thus meeting the directive of the 1942 conference, that the ANC should have one million members. The ANC remains very popular with the masses of our people, not only to vote for it, but to join it as members….

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3 responses to “Jacob Zuma’s political report to Mangaung conference”

Cyril Ramaphosa, the chairman of Shanduka and a long-standing leader of the ANC, tells BDlive he accepted his nomination to stand for election to deputy president after much consideration, consultation and soul searching

CYRIL Ramaphosa, the chairman of Shanduka and a long-standing leader of the African National Congress (ANC), says he has accepted his nomination to stand for election to deputy president of the ANC.

In reply to a question from Business Day Mr Ramaphosa said on Sunday evening: “I have accepted after much consideration, consultation and soul searching.”

He said there was nothing much more he could say until after the election.

Speaking to Business Day at the weekend, ANC KwaZulu-Natal provincial secretary Sihle Zikalala said his province was firmly behind Mr Zuma.

KwaZulu-Natal has the biggest delegation in Mangaung, with more than 900 of the 4,480 conference delegates coming from the ANC’s biggest province.

Mr Zikalala said Mr Ramaphosa “will help the ANC connect and relate better with the business sector, intellectuals and younger voters, especially those born after the unbanning of the ANC in 1990”.

More than a quarter of the ANC’s 1.2-million members come from KwaZulu-Natal, which has grown in numbers and stature in the past decade. It has been the lead province in the campaign for Mr Zuma’s second term.

Up to 3-million new and young voters are expected to appear on the voters roll in 2014, which could take the number of eligible voters close to the 25-million mark.

PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma opened the 53rd national conference of the African National Congress in Mangaung on Sunday, addressing more than 4,500 delegates from all over the country in a massive marquee erected on the campus of the University of the Free State.

When Mr Zuma took the stage, delegates whistled, clapped and sang, loosely translated, “Those who do not want Zuma must back off.”

Mr Zuma — who ignored a section of delegates calling for a “change” in leadership — then launched into a charm offensive, leading delegates in a spirited song in praise of ailing former president Nelson Mandela.

He added: “December 16 is the day on which the ANC launched the people’s army, Umkhonto we Sizwe, in 1961. We salute all generations of MK, many of whom sacrificed their youth for the struggle for liberation.”

Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe had accepted a nomination to challenge Mr Zuma for the ANC’s top post, but when Mr Zuma arrived at the marquee earlier, there were clear signals to his opponents that he enjoyed most delegates’ support.

Those against Mr Zuma at times seemed muted while his supporters sang and danced.

Mr Zuma paused for a section of the delegates to clap and ululate after he recognised Mr Motlanthe at the start of his speech.

Looking back to the Polokwane conference in 2007, he said the mandate was to mobilise “the vast majority of our people to take part fully in the ANC centenary celebrations” — something that had now been achieved.

“These celebrations revealed to us that the ANC remains the only hope for the poor and marginalised,” he said. “We saw those who were disillusioned becoming re-energised and reaffirming their support and pledging their participation in the ANC’s cause for fundamental social transformation.”

Mr Zuma said the road to Polokwane in 2007 had been turbulent, and it had been necessary to heal the ANC after that conference.

He then cut to the chase, outlining “alien practices” seeping into the party, such as factionalism and ill discipline. The processes running up to the elective conference had been fraught with allegations of manipulation and fraud.

“Our audit and verification of membership procedures should be improved so that only branches in good standing determine the policy and leadership direction of the organisation,” he said.

Rumour-mongering, gossip, “negative lobbying for positions” and public spats were harming the party’s image, he said, as did violence, including political killings — the most recent was the secretary of the Dr Kenneth Kaunda region in the North West.

“The shocking occurrences where armed comrades disrupt meetings … raise questions about what exactly could be so much at stake that people would go so far to get their own way in the organisation,” Mr Zuma said.

Money was being used to buy members, “turning members of the ANC into commodities”, he said, and members turning to the courts to resolve internal processes was also “totally unacceptable”.

Such lapses in discipline required the organisation to prioritise political education, he said.

When Mr Zuma cautioned against members who bought votes ahead of the Mangaung conference, ANC treasurer-general Mathews Phosa and Mr Motlanthe were the only two national officials seen clapping.

Mr Phosa has accepted nomination to become the ANC’s next deputy president — a position for which Mr Motlanthe is also standing.

Alliance politics

Mr Zuma acknowledged the “relevant and crucial” role still played by the various ANC leagues and its alliance partners, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), but cautioned that the relationship between alliance members had to be handled with care, avoiding public spats and “shouting from podiums if one partner is unhappy with the other”.

Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi — who was in the past criticised by the ruling party for taking an “oppositionist stance” — has in recent months sharply and publicly criticised the ANC on a range of issues.

Mr Vavi was not present at the national conference on Sunday, as his wife was unwell, but was likely to arrive on Monday.

“We bring various strengths into the relationship,” Mr Zuma said.

“The SACP brings specific ideological input as the vanguard of the working class …

Cosatu stands solely and squarely for the interests of the workers. It is not a political party, while the ANC stands for the interests of the entire nation irrespective of class or station in society.

The relationship amongst components of the alliance needs to be handled with the greatest of care because if we don’t do so, we can polarise the alliance.”

Marikana tragedy

The president extended his condolences to the families of the 40 miners who died in strike-related violence at Lonmin’s Marikana platinum mine this year, adding:

“At a political level, the Marikana tragedy exposed the organisational challenges we face both at the workplace and in the community.”

It is obvious the ANC arrived in Mangaung with severe problems and it takes much more than conference resolutions to mend an organisation, writes Steven Friedman

IT takes much more than conference resolutions to mend an organisation.

But conference decisions can show a willingness to begin to fix problems.

It is obvious that the African National Congress (ANC) has arrived in Mangaung with severe problems — many are listed in its own documents.

If further evidence was needed, a Constitutional Court order setting aside the election of its Free State leadership, and conflict-ridden nominating conferences in Limpopo, the North West and the Western Cape, provide it.

Given the extent of the problems, the most urgent challenge facing the ANC is not how to find new ways to fix the society, but how to fix itself.

The most obvious weakness is an inability to ensure that election losers accept that the winners won fairly.

This is a symptom of a deeper problem — intense competition for positions and claims that force, fraud and money are used to secure advantage.

This is often a symptom of a tendency by some to use the ANC office to secure private and public funds.

Inevitably, this ensures perhaps the most serious problem of all — a widening gulf between ANC leaders and supporters, many of whom believe that politicians are now far more interested in themselves and each other than the people who voted for them.

Mangaung cannot fix these problems.

Those who use ANC office to enrich themselves or to unfairly influence elections will not stop because a resolution tells them they must.

And, while some in the ANC believe that voters’ confidence can be won back by adopting policies that promise to address poverty, this misreads the core problem: that many supporters want ANC politicians to listen to them, not to do things for them.

And leaders can’t be made to listen by resolutions.

But the resolutions passed at the conference could give a sense of whether the ANC is getting on top of its problems. If we want a sense of how serious it is, three issues, which can be addressed by resolutions, may give us clues.

First, it would have to fix its election procedures.

Election results are likely to be challenged unless whoever organises them is clearly impartial or if all sides are represented in managing the process (the Independent Electoral Commission’s credibility partly stems from the fact that all parties have a say in its work).

If the ANC wants its elections to escape challenge, it could introduce either arrangement.

It could also make its elections more open by allowing campaigning — within agreed rules — rather than the current system in which factions fight their battles in the shadows.

Second, the ANC would need to show a willingness to begin cutting the link between politics and money.

One start would be to pass a clear resolution calling for a law to force politicians and parties to say where they get their money.

Obviously, politicians who are threatened by this will find ways round it — but a law would offer the possibility of holding them and their private donors to account.

Third, it might signal to ANC voters that it takes them seriously by resolving not to proceed with the Traditional Courts Bill that is currently before Parliament.

The bill, which is opposed by some ANC leaders, would boost the power of traditional leaders by forcing people subject to their authority to use traditional courts, controlled by the leaders.

It is probably a reward to the leaders for supporting the ANC but would make life very difficult for many ANC supporters in rural areas — which is why civil society organisations are campaigning against it.

A resolution insisting that the bill be dropped would signal a willingness to put voters before elites.

This is not an exhaustive list.

But the three examples are all supported by some within the ANC, and so there is at least some prospect that they may come up at the conference.

All three are also capable of implementation — the change in the electoral process and the decision to drop the bill would be very easy to implement.

All three would send a signal that the ANC is prepared to tackle its growing internal tensions.

If we want to know whether Mangaung is a sign that the ANC is addressing its problems rather than a symptom of how deep they have become, decisions on these issues will give us a sense of the answer.